The Wolfman

A slice (or should that be slash?) of Victorian gothic done fairly straight (surprisingly and thankfully) though not ducking the 21stC requirement for lots of explicit gore, literally visceral at times. There is plenty of mumbo-jumbo too: largely unintelligible mysticism from the Gypsies and lots of lowering talk of curses and demons from the locals. Many other cliches of the genre are trotted out: howlings to make you cringe and abrupt noises to make you jump. The gothic atmosphere if well achieved by clever sets and impressive CGI. The transformations from man to wolf are excellent technically, but it's a shame that the facial end result leaves the werewolves looking like something out of Cats. The locals (a troupe of stalwart British character actors) have the worst of the script, as they plough and plod through some cliched scenes, but the main players are quite well served in terms of melodrama and action. There's a quite satisfying liebestod at the end, though I won't say who's loving and who's dying, not that the rather predictable outcome warrants any spoiler alert.

Ok this movie is ok but do not expect the original, the werewolf is by far the best we have seen in a while but the transformation scenes are ruined by overdoing the cgi, the original is by far the best especially when you feel a connection with Lawrence talbot because you feel sorry for him and this is what lets the remake down, you don't feel sorry for him and they completely messed up the father character but hey what can you do just expect a story that's completely different to the original

Fails to entice despite excellent cast and the gothic visuals. The paste movie is too quick to identify oneself with the personages. Rather to feel sorry for Lawrence, I am happy it is over at the end.

since the movie is now being shown on film4 just after i rented it,its the same old story just different actors the special effects were good but many scenes were taken from the original black and white movie in fact i thing the whole movie is a re-make or the original black and white movie but with the better special effects

Dull, plodding and predictable. That's the feel of this movie.

Bizarrely the script itself has a few nice turns and interesting ideas, and the actors do their best to inject some charisma into proceedings.

The problem is that the film is quite evidently a mish-mash of different ideas and vying concepts thrown together too fast. This was apparent even before I read up the troubled production history (last minute director changes, on spec script rewriting and doctoring) The sort of situation which has NEVER led to anything but mediocrity or worst in filmmaking.

Worst of all is Benicio Del Toro, who grimly and stoicly mugs his way through the first half of the film with a character with no evident personality or understandable motives. When the defining history begins to unveil half-way through it's already too late, as we care nothing for his brooding, underwritten wolf-bait stage-actor.

Weaving and Hopkins at least have the grace to ham things up a little, enjoying their roles to the hilt, but ultimatley this is a movie which was ovbiously written as a psychological thriller, directed as a Hammer Horror romp and butchered by a studio who wanted a Blockbusting Horror in the vein of THE MUMMY.

Go watch the Lon-Chaney Jnr original. It's better in every regard.